how much can chief resident influence matching an applicant into a program?

[osprey099]

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I'm not quiet sure how the matching/interviewing works. Who exactly do you interview with on interview day? Is it the program director, chief resident, or both, neither? Can someone please give a brief overview of how the process works? Thank you!

 

[22031 Alum]

The short answer is, it varies by program but is usually some combination of Program Director, Chairperson, faculty, and residents (not necessarily a chief resident).

 

[WingedOx]

the answer is "whoever is available that day". We have other jobs to do outside of interviewing people.

 

[Law2Doc]

At most programs you will meet with some faculty and some residents. Often the pre-interview dinner or interview day lunch or tour is when you'll meet the residents. At most programs the strong views of the residents matter, as they will be in the trenches with you. At places I have trained and worked there is resident participation in the actual rank meetings. May not be the chief but often is. So in short if any resident has a strong feeling about you, good or bad, that could absolutely impact your ranking or even if you get ranked at all.

 

[IlDestriero]

the answer is "whoever is available that day". We have other jobs to do outside of interviewing people.

We have a core interview group and a few alternates for the fellowship.


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Il Destriero

 

[J ROD]

It depends. That simple, but usually they can kill your app if you rub one the wrong way.

 

[mimelim]

IMO much more potential to influence in the negative than the positive. I can basically blackball someone if I want, but I can't move a marginal candidate to the top of our list.

This is my experience as well. I can get someone's application looked at (I guess maybe translating into higher chance of interviewing) and definitely can drop someone off the top of the list, but next to impossible to move people up. Nobody wants someone around that doesn't fit with the residents. That is just asking for trouble.

 

[Goro]

What a fascinating peek into this process! I especially appreciate hearing the wisdom of my favorite SDNers in this thread.

I'm struck by how different the process is from interviewing med school or Faculty candidates. For the former, having a strong advocate on the Adcom can salvage a marginal candidate, with the reverse also being true.

For Faculty jobs, for the experiences I've been part of or closely observed, they're more akin to the residency process. Even Chairs can't seem to save their favored candidate. Even more interestingly, the gestalt of the search committee has been pretty well matched. When we rank candidates, the committee members tend to be in close but not perfect agreement. The only time I can recall an instance where the votes were allover the place, we had to re-do the search. The position was for a Pathophysiologist, and trying to define "pathophysiology" was like trying to nail Jello to the wall.

I don't know if this is true for residency, but at times I've seen Deans interfere with both the Faculty search and medical student acceptance processes.

I'm not quiet sure how the matching/interviewing works. Who exactly do you interview with on interview day? Is it the program director, chief resident, or both, neither? Can someone please give a brief overview of how the process works? Thank you!

 

[Tenk]

Residents as a whole have more of a veto power than a positive influence for applicants. When you have all the residents saying "this person whines a lot and wouldn't do well here," that person is gone. Period. That said a chief resident is taken more seriously and can probably have more of an impact in a positive light as well.